The Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation (MoFEC) of Ethiopia tabled a budget of 346.9 billion birr at the parliament for the 2018/19 budget year.

The proposal which was tabled by Abraham Tekeste (PHD), the minister of MOFEC, would likely be approved by the parliament before the end of the current fiscal year. The proposed budget is higher than the 2017/18 fiscal year’s budget by a 3.6 percent (12 billion birr). Even though the budget has shown a 12 billion birr increase, it has significantly decreased compared with hard currency, which is the major resource for importing items. Accordingly, because of the 15% devaluation which was applied in October 2017, the anticipated budget for the next fiscal year is in fact lower than this year’s budget which is USD 13.9 billion.

Even though a 320 billion birr budget was approved by the government for the current year, the actual disbursement was reduced by 50 billion birr according to Abraham (PHD). The Minister said that the government’s target was to collect over 200 billion birr from tax “while the actual collection would not be expected to surpass 150 billion.” As a result, the government was forced to transfer several projects which were aimed for the current year to the next fiscal year.

The budget documents indicated that for the coming budget year, the tax collection would be 211 billion birr.

Out of the total 346.9 billion birr, 91.63 billion birr is allotted for regular expenditure, 113.63 billion birr for capital expenditure, 135.6 billion birr for regional subsidy, and 6 billion birr for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Source: Capital Ethiopia and Ethiopian News Agency